Thursday, January 21, 2016

In 1905 Alva Nordberg, 29, a child
care provider (baby farmer) residing in Rådmansö parish, Stockholm, Sweden, was
convicted of killing three babies – through either neglect or assault. She was
not prosecuted for the death of a fourth child who perished after being removed
from her care. Nordberg was sentenced to only four years in prison.

***

Alva Nordberg; Rådmansö parish,
Stockholm, Sweden

Born: July 15, 1876

Arrested: Jun. 20, 1905

Court
judgment: October 3, 1905

4
Victims:

1)
Blenda Hallberg, daughter of Karin Ragnhild; born Feb. 27, 1905; in care of
Nordberg from 8 May to 16; died in May.

2)
Elsa Gunhild Wigströms daughter Naemi born March 6, 1905 ; in care of Nordberg
from June 4; died Jun. 6, 1905.

3)
Anna Jansson's son Axel Herman was born June 4, 1905; in care of Nordberg from
July 2; died on the Jun. 15 of the same month.

4)
Martha Ulrika, daughter of Alma Larsson's, May 31, 1905, in care of Nordberg
from 10 June 10 to 18 July 18; died after being removed.

Monday, January 18, 2016

This long title from 1684 book relating Ridgway’s story summarizes the case (archaic spelling is preserved):

A True relation of four most barbarous and cruel murders committed in Leicester-shire by Elizabeth Ridgway; The Like not Known in any Age. With the Particulars of Time, Place, (and other Circumstances) how she first poisoned her own Mother; after that, a Fellow Servant; then her Sweet-Heart; and last of all her Husband; for all which Tragical Murders the being brought to Justice, was Tryed, and found Guilty, at the late Lent-Assizes held for the said County: and for the same, was Burnt to Death, on Monday the 24th. of March, 1684.

Mid-Jan. 1684
– John Ridgway, husband; killed within a week of their marriage.

Intended
victims:

William Corbet

Richared
Tilley

***

This long title from 1684 book relating Ridgway’s story
summarizes the case (archaic spelling is preserved):

A True relation of four most barbarous and cruel MURDERS
committed in Leicester-shire by ELIZABETH RIDGWAY; The Like not Known in any
Age. With the Particulars of Time, Place, (and other Circumstances) how she
first poisoned her own Mother; after that, a Fellow Servant; then her
Sweet-Heart; and last of all her Husband; for all which Tragical Murders the
being brought to Justice, was Tryed, and found Guilty, at the late Lent-Assizes
held for the said County: and for the same, was Burnt to Death, on Monday the
24th. of March, 1684.

[Printed by Geo. Croom, 1684]

***

Original spellings retained with the exception to the
archaic “s” letter [f] which has been changed to the modern form. [updated Jun.
24, 2016]

FULL TEXT: A Dam being
once fallen from the State of Innocency and driven from that Paradise of Pleasure
and Security wherein God had placed
him, instead of the sublime Life, to be as God,
which the Devil Had promised upon Eating the
Forbidden Fruit, he put them upon the Destruction of one
another, and such a Depravedness
had Sin in those early Days brought upon their
Nature, that the greatest, piece of Manhood we first hear of, was an Endeavour to destroy Humane Kind.

And, that the Arch-Enemy of Man might effect the utter Destruction of that Creature whose Excellent Creation he so much
envied, whilst yet there was but a few in the World, he set one Brother to murder the other,
even before any pretended Occasion, or Quarrel, could be alledged.

As the People increased in After-Ages,
the fame Enemy of Mankind stirred up Murders, Rapines, Bloodshed, and all
things that tended to the Destruction of Humane Society,
Nation against Nation, and Family against
Family;
which, since the World hath been Peopled, Languages and Kingdoms Divided, has gotten a fairer
Title than that of Murder.

But of all Murders none so
plainly discovers the inherent Cruelty and Enmity
which Sin has lodged in Humane Nature, as those committed by private Persons, upon Premeditation who,
though by the Laws of the Land
Protected from open Violence one against another, yet, will take upon them to
revenge every little Difference, or conceived Displeasure, by the private Murder of the
Dearest Friend they have. Of which latter sort, a fresher and more barbarous
Example, certainly, has not in this Age been heard of, than what I have now to relate from Leicestershire
a Female of that Country having out-done the Desperadoes
of this Town for Cruelty, whose often Excesses in Drinking, Debaucheries amongst Women, and Heats of Blood produced therefrom,
a little palliates for their
Crimes, as more the Effect of
Rashness and Madness, than the Bloodiness of their Natures.

Elizabeth Ridgway,late Wife of William Ridgway, (a Taylor at
Ipstocke, a Village near Besworth in Leicestershire, three Miles from Market Besworth) being the
fatal Subject of this Relation;
She was the Daughter of Husbands, a Farmer, who lived in that or
a neighbouring Village, with whom he was brought
up, and continued untill she was about 29 Years of Age, being always looked upon
as a Religious Maid, and a Follower of the Presbyterians; yet, as appears, she was a Wolf in a Lamb’s Skin, or
rather, a Devil in the Shape of
a Saint, and great Cause to believe, that for
eight years past, at the least (if not longer) she had been such: Yet, the
first of her Tragical Actions that came to publick Discovery, was committed about three years since, when, she Poysoned her own Mother, (viz. Mary Husbands)for no other Provocation,
that was known, but some falling out about their Houshold Affairs, or being
reproved by her said Mother for some other thing she disliked in her.

Her Mother being dispatched, she kept her Fathers House about the spice of a Year after that, went
to Service, and had not long been there, but a
Young-man who was one of her Fellow
Servants having some Difference with her, she seemed to put it up, as her manner was, never Scolding it
out, but rather, being of a dogged, sullen Humour, kept her Malice to her self.
But soon after their said Difference, the young-man
died suddenly, to the Admiration of the Family, by
reason he was a healthful, temperate Fellow, and
never complained of any Illness till a few Hours before his Death, when
the Poyson was working upon him. Her way of Poysoning was, by mixing White Mercury or other Powder, in their
Broath, or Drink.

These two Murthered Persons were
buried, without Discovery of the Murderer, and she
past on untill August last, when, having two Sweet-Hearts, or Young men
that Courted her in Marriage, viz.
one John King a Servant, to Mr. Paget
of Ipstocke, and William Ridgway,a
Taylor, of the same Town or Village, it so fell out that
she seeming to have the greatest Liking to William Ridgway, as being a House-Keeper that had two Apprentices, and lived in some Repute and before she knew which she liked
best, having been so free with the other as
that she thought he might be some Trouble to her, she resorted to her old
Trade, and continued to keep the said John King Company untill she had an Opportunity
to season him some Draught which sent him into the other World. This third
Murder she accomplish’d about the middle of August, and past part of the
Winter in Service, untill after Christmas she was
married to the Unfortunate Taylor William
Ridgway with whom she had not lived above a Week but they hapned [sic] to
have some Falling-out, yet such, as that Ridgway toldher, he doubted he should have an uncomfortable Wife
of her, or said some Words to that effect. However, their Difference seemed to
be composed, and they went lovingly together to Ashby
Delazouch Market to buy some Houshold-stuff; but in a Fortnight after their Falling-out, being in all about three Weeks
after the Marriage she gave him some Broath, wherein she had put White
Mercury; at eating of which, he found great Fault, in the hearing of one or
both the Apprentices, saying, something was in them
more than ordinary, find
that it grated in his Teeth: but notwithstanding that Dislike, he eat
so much as worked his Destruction; for he soon sell
into a very sad Condition, and died after they had
been married three Weeks and two Days.

He was buried without any publick Discovery
of his being Poysoned: But the time of her Diabolical
Actions drawing near a Determination, or rather the Divine justice now
overtaking such horrid and unnatural Sins, this fourth Murder caused a
Discontent amongst the Neighbourhood, who not being able to prove any thing
against her, it rested some days, untill she
attempted to Poyson her two Apprentices also, making her fifth
Attempt upon Richard
Tilley, her youngest apprentice, seasoning his Broath with her Wonted
ingredients; but the Boy a little alarum’d by the Complaint his Master made of
his Broath, or having watched her more narrowly, positively refused to eat his
poysoned Broath; at which the pretending
Anger, took them up and threw them away; the Boy repaired as soon as possible,
and acquainted his Father therewith, and how his Dame had thrown the Porridge
away because he refused them, as likewise he had observed her to throw some
that were left in his Master’s Dish, away; the former Suspicion then grew into
a Flame; she was seized, and carried before Sir Beaumont Dixey, a neighboring Justice of Peace, where all the
Circumstances of Suspicion were charged against her, but more especially that
of her Husband’s Death; who, after he had been buried eight days, was taken up
again, and viewed; but ‘tis most remarkable, That when John Ridgway, the Father of the Deceased, forced her to touch the
dead Body (which she was very averse to) it burst out at Nose and Mouth
Bleeding, as fresh as if new Stabbed: howbeit, her Instructor in those wicked
Practices, to secure her for his own, kept her from any penitent
Acknowledgment; but on the contrary, she persisted in constant Denial of all
that was charged against her, that she had either Poysoned her Husband or any
other Person.

The Coroner being sent for, had such
strong Evidence, that upon his Inquest, William
Ridgway was found to be Poysoned, and said Elizabeth thereupon committed to
Leicester Goal. At the Assizes, which
in some Weeks after was held for that County, she was brought to Tryal,
continuing in her Denial: but the said Inquest taken by the Coroner, with the
concurring Evidence of the Boy hearing his Master’s Complaint of the Broath and
upon a strict Inquiry, having been found out that she had bought White
Mercury at Abby Delazouch Market when (he went with her said Husband
to buy Houshold stuff, (and soon after their Falling-out) also that when the Boy refused the Porridge, and that Che found he suspected her,
she desired him to say nothing of her throwing the Porridge away, but that if he would be good to her she would be good to
him with several other strong Circumstances that at least she had poysoned her
Husband: and she being thereof found Guilty, received Sentence to be Burnt to Ashes at the Common
Place of Execution for that County.

After Sentence, great Endeavours were used by many to work
in her a Confession, and Remorse of such barbarous Crimes; all which proved ineffectual till the very Morning
(viz.on Monday the 24th. of March.
1684.) that she was to be Executed; when she perceiving
she must dye, and that her Denials would avail her
nothing, confess’d, that for eight years past she had lain with a
Familiar Spirit, who at her first Contract with him,
tempted her to poyson her self, which she refused; and after that tempted her to poyson any one that offended her;
that she had, during the said years, constantly concealed
Poyson in her Hair, and upon all Occasions renewed it at several
Markets: she confess’d the Murdering of her Mother, of her
Fellow-Servant, and of her Sweet-heart, to be for the Reasons herein mentioned
also, that when married she did not love her Husband, and therefore Poysoned him;
that she intended to have Poisoned her two
Apprentices, Richard Tilley and
William Corbet;and last of all to have Poisoned her self.
She did not seem, very free in her Confession,
mentioning only those with whose Death she had been charged therefore it’s
thought in her eight years time many others, not taken
notice of died by her Malice,
by reason of the could not, to the very last, be brought
to any penitent Behaviour, refusing the Assistance of
two Eminent Divines who offered to go with her and assist
her at the Place of Execution, telling them, the
could Read and Pray as well as they could. Neither
would she add any thing more at the Stake, or repeat what she had before
confess’d; telling the People she had made a Confession
before she came out. She was kept great part of the Day in Prison, in
Expectation of a greater Discovery; and when at the Stake, a Spectator of two Brothers who were Executed for other Crimes (one of which might have had a Reprieve
if he would have hanged his Brother, and Executed
her, but refused it) all which having no other Effect than hath been related,
she was at length fastned to the Stake, much desiring they would let her be
hanged first, which not being granted, as soon as the Fire touched her she gave
one Shriek, and leaping besides the Block, with the
Rope and the Smoak she was soon choaked, and afterwards burnt according to the Sentence.

If any Reader question the Truth of
this Relation, or think the Author may have added thereto,
they may be satisfied to the contrary by William
Corbet,the eldest of the said Apprentices (one of them
that was attempted to be Poysoned) who upon the Death
of his Master being at Liberty, is come up to this Town, and lives now at the Swan in Shooe-makers Row in Black-Fryers,As also by George Ridgway, the Brother of the
said William Ridgman
that was Poysoned, who lives at the Kings-Head
in Kings-street near the Queens
Garden.

FINIS.

LONDON, Printed by Geo. Croom, at the Sign of the Blew Ball
over against Baynard’s Castle in Thames-street. 1684.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): Wellsborough, Penn., Aug. 10. –
Mrs. Charlotte Howell of Tioga, a good-looking woman of about twenty-seven
years of age. was lodged in jail here last eight, charged with the murder of
Miss Libbie Knapp at Tioga on May 30 last. Two detectives from the Wilkinson
agency, in New-York have been investigating the case for six weeks, and it is
believed that they have secured evidence enough to convict Mrs. Howell of the crime.
Her examination is to take place next Tuesday.

Miss Knapp died under mysterious circumstances. She retired
at night in her usual health, awoke in great pain, and died twelve hours later.
She stoutly affirmed before her death that she had been poisoned, and so the
Coroner’s jury decided.

Miss Knapp had been living with the Howells, and it is
believed that Mr. Howell became jealous of her. It is said that the detectives
have some evidence to show that Howell’s first wife died under similar
circumstances a few years ago, and that his young son also died suddenly, both
deaths resulting from poisoning, and that Mrs. Howell may also be connected
with these cases.

[“Mrs. Charlotte Howell Arrested on a Charge of Murder Her
Husband’s First Wife and Son Died Strangely.” The New York Times (N. Y.), Aug.
11, 1895, p. 9]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 4): At the close of the examination
of Mrs. Charlotte Howell last Wednesday morning before Justice Robert K. Young
she was remanded to jail to await the action of the grand jury at the September
term of court, on the charge of poisoning Miss Libbie Knapp at Tioga last May.

Mr. Jerome Burke, a neighbor of the Howells, testified that
a day or two before Libbie Knapp’s death his wife asked him to stop at Mr.
Howell’s house and ask after Libbie as he passed on the way to milk his cow. He
opened the Howell gate, walked to the door and peered around the house,
satisfying himself that nobody was yet astir. When he went out he barred the
gate with a prop. On his return from milking, Mr. Burke, who walks with an
artificial leg, set the pail down at Howell’s gate to rest. While he was
standing there the door of the Howell house was opened as Mrs. Howell pushed
her head outside, the quickly withdrew it when she saw Burke. That Mrs. Howell
displayed a letter addressed to Libbie Knapp, which she said she found tied to
the front gate early that morning. Burke, however declares that the front gate
early that morning. Burke, however declares that there was no sign of a note or
envelope on gate or door when he went by the house. The contents of this letter
were of a filthy, depraved character, charging the Knapp girl with improper
acts and reiterating the story of the administration of the poison.

Mrs. Mary Stevens testified that in the early part of March
Mrs. Howell borrowed from her a teaspoonful of poison known as “Rough on Rats,”
the reason given that Mrs. Howell wanted to get rid of an old dog. About the
middle of April Mrs. Howell sent for more of the poison to kill a cat. She said
her husband had found the first dose and threw it into the stove. About two
weeks before the time that Libbie Knapp was taken ill at her house Mrs. Howell
one morning sent a note by her boy to the witness, in which she requested Mrs.
Stevens to bring with her the box of “Rough on Rats” and come to her house at
once. Mrs. Stevens was at that time in a delicate condition. She complied with
the request in the note, took the box of “Rough on Rats” and went to Mrs.
Howell’s house. Mrs. Howell declared that during the night before she dreamed
that somebody had given Mrs. Stevens poison to kill her unborn babe, and that
because of this dream she wanted Mrs. Stevens to turn the box of “Rough on Rats”
over into her possession. Mrs. Stevens acquiesced, and saw Mrs. Howell push the
box back on a shelf among a number of bottles. Two days after the death of
Libbie Knapp Mrs. Stevens called at the Howell home, and Mrs. Howell told her
that she had burned the box of “Rough on Rats” in the stove that very morning,
because since Libbie died of poison she was so nervous that she didn’t want any
of it in her house.

The evidence of Mr. Burt Keeney, the stenographer who was
present at the interview with Mrs. Howell in District Attorney Owlett’s office,
was important. Notwithstanding that Dr. Brown had stated on the stand that
Libbie Knapp never said anything to to him about being poisoned., Mrs. Howell
told the District Attorney that Libbie told the doctor that she thought she was
poisoned; that if he would give her something for poison it would help her;
that Libbie told this to Dr. Brown nearly every time her cam; told him that she
thought Will Rightmire had poisoned her. According to the testimony of Keeney
the defendant material discrepancies between her statements immediately after
the girl’s will be remembered that the first dose of “Rough on Rats” had been
found by her husband had burned; in the hearing of Mr. Keeney she stated that
the first lot of poison procured from Mrs. Stevens was spread on bread, and put
in the clear for rats; the second, as she stated before, who used for killing
an old black cat.

It was shown by witnesses that Mrs. Howell’s stories as to
when she burned the poison did not agree. She told the Distict Attorney that
she burned up the box at Libbie’s request two days before her death. She also
said she was washing clothes at the well when Burke passed her house; this
Burke denied. There were also some serious discrepancies to her story about the
dream and Mrs. Stevens’s statement if the incident.

When Libbie Knapp died a startling story was circulated.
Mrs. Howell declared that a night or two before the girl died she was aroused
from her sleep by Libbie’s screams. She went down stairs to the girl’s room,
where Libbie told her that somebody had been in her room, had put some sweetish
substance in her mouth and had stolen her pocket book, which contained a small
sum of money. The night following this strange occurrence Mrs. Howell says a
letter and Libbie’s pocket-book were tied to the gate. The note purported to
have been written by young Rightmire, and it declared that it was he who had
entered the girl’s room, administered the poison and took the pocket-book. Mrs.
Howell, subsequent to the girl’s death, said Libbie told her that Rightmire
once made an improper proposal to her, for which she “read him a free lecture.”
Rightmire further charged her with having improper relations with Chauncey
Howell.

Mrs. Howell had been asked to print with a pencil some
verbatim copies of the letters which had been sent to Libbie Knapp. She did so,
and her copies of the letters which had been sent to Libbie Knapp. She did so,
and her copies were placed in evidence to show their striking similarity to the
original in general and in the peculiar formulation of many letters in
particular.

[“The Case of Mrs. Charlotte Howell. – Testimony On Which
She Was Held For The Action Of The Grand Jury.” The Wellsboro Agitator (Pa.),
Aug. 21, 1895, p. 3]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 4): Wellsboro, Pa., Nov. 28. – The county court here
has been occupied all week on the case of Mrs. Charlotte Howell, who is charged
with the murder of Elizabeth Knapp at Tioga last May. It will be remembered
that Miss Knapp died under mysterious circumstances, and it was suspected that
she had been poisoned. Detectives were set to work and the more they
investigated the case, the more probable it became that a foul deed had been
committed. Miss Knapp lived with Mrs. Howell and for months before her death
she received every day or two a threatening anonymous letter. Libbie (Miss
Knapp) saved all the letters until she had about 100. These are now to offered
in evidence and an attempt is made to establish the fact that Mrs. Howell was
the author of them all, and that she it was who, from a jealous motive gave
Libbie Knapp poison. Mrs. Howell was induced to write or print some letters in
Roman capitals, dictated to her from some of the originals. She made these
copies in the presence of several witnesses, among them the detectives.

The case has dragged along without particular incident until
this afternoon, when Mrs. Howell was put upon the stand to testify in her own
behalf relative to her examination in the district attorney’s office before her
arrest, when she made the printed copies of the letters. She stated that
Dupignac, one of the New York detectives, was in the room alone with her and
that he made an insulting proposal to her, offered her $25 to accede to his
request. She alleges that the detectives told her that if she would confess the
whole thing they would let her off free.

Dupignac took the stand and declared that there was no truth
in the woman’s testimony regarding has words and actions.The letters made by
Mrs. Howell were then offered in evidence as a ground upon which to establish the
fact that she brought the original notes to Libbie Knapp, which contained vile
insinuations and threats. The court ruled all these letters out and this is
considered a very strong point for the defence. The case is a very singular one
in criminal annals. The evidence is very circumstantial, but is deemed to be
quite complete in every point, except on that of a motive for poisoning the
girl.

If the commonwealth is able to male it appear that Mrs.
Howell was jealous of the girl the case will be a strong one, without this, it
will no doubt, be impossible to convict her.

FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 4): Wellsboro, Pa., December 13.
Mrs. Charlotte Howell was acquitted of the charge of murder in poisoning Libbie
Knapp to-night. The verdict of the jury was greeted with uproarious applause in
the court room. Mrs. Howell remained calm, until her relatives stepped up to
congratulate her. Then her eyes filled with tears for a moment, but she dashed
them away and was herself again. The Messrs. Dutton, of New York, her two
brothers, and her sister and a few other friends clustered about her as she
arose from her chair a free woman. She quietly accepted the hands offered, and
when two or three of the jurors approached to be presented to her, she met them
in a dignified and modest manner, and with no demonstration of emotion.

This morning Jerome B. Niles occupied the entire session in
a forcible presentation of the Commonwealth’s side of the case. He was followed
by Judge Mitchell, who consumed nearly two hours and a half in his charge to
the jury. This was considered by members of the bar a fair and impartial
statement of the case. He dwelt upon the fact that the evidence had been wholly
circumstantial and instructed the jury that unless they could satisfy their
minds beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Howell had committed the crime, and
no one else, it would clearly be their duty, under the law, to acquit her. The
case was given to the jury at 5 o’clock, and exactly an hour later they had
reached their verdict. Many of the jurors are elderly men and they showed the
strain of twenty days confinement. They appeared to be relieved and well
satisfied with their work.

A Strange Case.

The Howell case was one of the strangest in the criminal
annals of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Howell, who is the wife of Chauncey Howell, of
Tioga, is a member of a well-known New York family, and her two brothers are
among the wealthiest merchants of that city. She was estranged from them from
the time of her marriage, until the charge of murder was preferred against her,
when they came to her assistance. The Howells and Knapps were neighbors and a
warm intimacy existed between Mrs. Howell and Libbie, who was 19 years old.
Libbie had a love affair, which ended in a parting, and thereafter she began to
receive letters which would be found tied to the door knob, thrust in a broken
window pane, or thrown in the doorway. These bore the signature of a Tioga
young man and most of them, it was alleged, were found by Mrs. Howell.

Last May Libbie was taken suddenly ill and Mrs. Howell took
her to her own house to attend her. On May 17 she died and subsequently
evidence of poisoning was found. Mrs. Howell Was soon afterwards arrested. The
letters, which were both obscene and threatening in character, were all printed
in Roman letters with a lead pencil. It was the Commonwealth’s purpose to prove
that the prisoner had poisoned the girl because of jealousy.

A Sensational Statement.

The trial began three weeks ago, and on the fourth day Mrs.
Howell was put on the stand in her own behalf. She created a sensation by
declaring that she had been offered money and promised acquittal if she would
make a confession. This proposition was alleged to have been made by detectives
before the formal charge was made against her. It was denied by those
implicated. One of the witnesses for the prosecution was Wm. Rightmer, the
discarded lover of Libbie Knapp, upon whom counsel for the defense attempted to
fasten suspicion. The medical testimony proved that the girl had been killed by
arsenic, but it was all along the impression that no motive for committing the
crime had been fixed on Mrs. Howell. It was also shown that others beside
herself had found the letters, and there was much testimony of an inferential
character directed towards Rightmer as their author. There was nothing adduced
to show that the relations of the two women had ever been anything but warm and
friendly.

There is a general satisfaction over the result of the
trial, but the case remains shrouded in mystery. There is no question of the
fact that the girl was murdered, but nothing positive has been brought out to
fasten the crime upon anyone.

[“Mrs. Charlotte Howell. - Mrs. Howell Not Guilty The
Verdict Of The Jury Affords General Satisfaction. - A Most Extraordinary Case -
The Death of Libbie Knapp Remains as Great a Mystery as Ever - She Unquestionably
Died From Poison, But by Whom It Was Administered Will Probably Never be
Known.” The Times (Philadelphia, Pa.), Dec. 14, 1895, p. 1]

Are women who kill men protected from capital punishment by
an “unwritten law” which, says they shall not be hanged?

The plea of the eloquent California lawyer who defended Thaw
that the “unwritten law” justifies a man in killing another under certain
circumstances finds an equally strong counterpart in a public sentiment firmly
fixed in most States which silently protests against capital punishment for
women.

Is this sentiment, which may be called the new “unwritten
law,” the incentive to recent numerous murders of men by women.

The question whether women become murderesses because they
are, through a maudlin public sentiment, immune from the severest penalty of
the law, is one which criminologists and the legal profession now discuss
without reaching a solution which will receive general approval.

The hanging of a. woman in Vermont a few years ago for the
murder of her husband, though the people of the State protested, proved that
the executive of the State was firm in heeding the cold demand of the law. On
the other hand, the commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment. In
the case of Mrs. Aggie Myers would indicate that the chief executive of this
State yielded to the almost unanimous prejudice against capital punishment for
women.

The recent killing of Walter S. Guerin, a young artist, by
Mrs. Dora McDonald, wife of an ex-gambling and political boss of Chicago, has
given rise to the question whether the woman committed the deed in the full
realization that the sentiment opposing capital punishment for women would save
her from the severe penalty of the law, or whether she counted on the strong
political influence and wealth of her husband to extricate her.

~ Chicago Sentiment Divided. ~

Although in Chicago sentiment is divided as to justification
or lack of justification for the killing, the feeling is strong that she ought
not, and probably will not, have to face the risk of the extreme penalty should
she be convicted.

The actual motive of this still very recent crime is as yet
unexplained. The murderess has since the day of the tragedy been suffering from
real or feigned mental derangement, and in lucid moments has declared that she
killed the artist in self-defense and again has stated that she went to Guerin’s
studio to put an end to a burden of blackmail which he had forced upon her.

On the other hand, Guerin’s relatives say it was murderous jealousy
which led to the crime, that Dora McDonald was so infatuated with the young man
that on hearing a false report that he was to wed another she was driven to
frenzy, and determined to kill him rather than permit another woman to take her
place in his affections.

Mrs. McDonald has obtained her liberty temporarily, under
heavy bail, and while already indicted for murder in the first degree, remains
safe from inquisitors m her luxurious home. While juries in Illinois have not
been too reluctant in punishing women for murder, they have invariably
disregarded the State’s plea for capital punishment.

~ Transferred His Affections. ~

More sensational, perhaps, was the recent killing of former
United States benator Arthur Brown, of Utah, at Washington, D. C. , by Mrs
Annie M. Bradley. The man, according to the woman’s story had often promised to
obtain a divorce from his wife and marry her. At other times, it is claimed, he
promised to and did acknowledge publicly that Mrs. Bradley’s two younger children
were his. When she discovered this he had transferred his affections, after his
wife’s death, to another woman, whom it was rumored he was about to marry. Mrs.
Bradley followed him to the National Capital and killed him.

Whether the “new unwritten law” will prevail to save Mrs.
Bradley from capital punishment in the event she is convicted is a problem. Though
possessing no means she has many influential friends, who are standing by her.
A half dozen able lawyers have been engaged to defend her and they are sanguine
they will secure acquittal.

~ The Case of Mrs. Tolla. ~

There nas been one recent case, though, where a jury scorned
the new “unwritten law” and did not hesitate to convict a woman for murder. It
was in Jersey City that Mrs. Antoinette Tolla in defense from the persecution
of Joseph Santo shot and killed him. Even the wife of the slam man justified
the killing, but the jury failed to see any extenuating circumstances or to be
influenced by the defendant’s sex and found her guilty of murder in the first
degree. However public sentiment proved powerful enough to save the woman from
an ignominious fate and influence brought to bear upon the State board of
pardons resulted in a commutation to life imprisonment.

A different wrong from the one usually actuating women to
slay men figures in the mysterious case of the Baroness, de Massey. She came to
this country a few months ago and in New York killed Gustav Simon a wealthy
shirt manufacturer who she alleges, murdered her husband in France. It was to
avenge her husband’s murder she declares, that she followed Simon and killed
him. The family of Simon deny the woman’s story and assert that she attempted
to blackmail her victim and failing and fearing exposure, she slew him.

There are the same elements of mystery and contradiction in
this murder by a woman as in the McDonald-Guerin tragedy in Chicago. The trial
will doubtless reveal the truth and demonstrate whether the now “unwritten law”
which safeguards murderesses will prevail to save the Baroness de Massey,
should she be convicted.

~ May Escape Death Penalty. ~

There are, however, numerous precedents to make the baroness
hopeful that she will either be acquitted or escape the death penalty. There are
the cases of Florence Burns, Rosa, Salza, Josephine Terranova, and Nan
Patterson. The first three named who killed men were set free by juries in the
case of Nan Patterson, the former show girl was placed on trial three times for
the alleged murder of Caesar Young, an English sporting man, who died from a pistol
shot while in a cab with her. There was no proof that Nan Patterson shot the
man but his severance of his relations with her was claimed by the prosecution
to furnish the motive which probably led her to kill him.

The prosecution amassed much circumstantial evidence to show
that Nan Patterson committed the crime, but on each one of the trials as many
different juries failed to be convinced and disagreed. She was given her
freedom. Since then she became reconciled to her husband, and the two are
living together. Only her trial will determine whether Goldie O’Neil, a once
popular chorus girl will fare better, as well, or worse than Nan Patterson. She
stabbed her husband to death with a hatpin. She claims self-defense, and her
friends and relative’s sustain that plea.

~ Sentiment Favors the Women. ~

On the other hand, the State declares it will prove that Goldie
O’Nell, chafing under the matrimonial yoke, deliberately drove a hatpin through
her husband’s heart. In jail at Bridgeport, she awaits her trial. Sentiment in
the community, as in most others in America, favors the new “unwritten law” for
women.

In the South, where the ancient “unwritten law” is still
strong in turning men, the new “unwritten law,” which saves murderesses from
capital punishment, does not appear from a recent instance to grant them
absolute immunity. Mrs. Annie Birdsong, member of a prominent family of
Mississippi, and a cousin of former United States Senate McDaurin, of South
Carolina, shot and killed Dr. Butler, an intimate friend of her husband. The
woman’s plea was that her victim had slandered her without cause.

The prosecution claimed that Mrs Birdsong was infatuated
with Dr Butler, and that she was enraged at his coolness toward her. The ablest
lawyers of Mississippi were arrayed on both sides, former Senator McLaurln
appearing as one of the counsel for his relative. The defense felt that their
case was so strong that Mrs. Birdsong must easily go free. But, contrary to
general expectation, the jury thought otherwise, though it exercised a large
degree of mercy.

She was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a term of
several years in State’s prison. A motion for a new trial was made,
successfully in the near future, Mrs Birdsong will face a jury for the second
time, and the impression is that the verdict may be acquittal.

~ The Case of Judge Favrot. ~

Differing from the Birdsong case only in that the accused
slayer is a man, instead of a woman, but in all other essential circumstances
the same, is that of former Judge Favrot, now a Louisiana Congressman-elect,
who on the day he was elected, shot and killed his most intimate friend, also a
physician, for the same cause Mrs. Birdsong claims impelled her crime, only
that Congressman Favrot asserts that his victim slandered the good name of his
wife.

Favrot still being judge of the court whose duty it was to
summon a grand jury to take up his case could not act, but after considerable
delay, a special judge was named, a grand jury impaneled and an indictment for
murder in the first degree returned. This bill, however, sustained by the lower
court, has been quashed by a higher tribunal, and while it is almost certain
that a new indictment will be found against Favrot, it is believed certain that
the “unwritten law” will prove effectual in saving him. The two cases are cited
merely because they are similar in circumstances and to show that while the
only difference is the sex of the slayer, juries are differently swayed by what
has recently been called “dementia Americana,” a new name coined by the chief
counsel in Thaw’s defense for a public sentiment which has abided with and
influenced Americans from the earliest time.

~ The “Unwritten Law” and Its Power. ~

In considering the force and power of the new “unwritten law”
which comes to juries from the people and virtually tells these arbiters of the
fate of murderesses that they shall not hang a woman only crimes in which men
are the victims of wronged women’s passion or jealousy are cited. There are
many other murder cases in which females are the slayers, but in which women or
children are the victims.

The mercy of the new “unwritten law” extends to the latter
as well as to those who take the life of men. Around the men slayers, though,
there is more of the glamour of romance, sentiment, and human sympathy than
there is for the woman or girl who kills either another of her sex or children.
Mercy is the softening factor in punishment for a woman who, through jealousy
or cruelty, slays one of her sex or a helpless child. But no real sympathy is
aroused for such an offender, and punishment tempered with leniency, is the
inevitable decree.

The woman who kills a man to redress a wrong done her which
the law will not right for her rarely risks the extreme penalty. This fact, for
fact it is, and based on precedents and recurring precedents in new crimes, is
argued by criminologists to be the cause of the sudden and appalling increase
in the number of murders by women-killings in which men are the victims.

~ Many Still to Be Tried. ~

There are a large number of murderesses yet to be tried for
their deeds, too recent and with the details too fresh in mind, to prove that
the new “unwritten law” is inflexible. It remains to be seen how jurors will
act in some very remarkable cases in which women are the defendants.

An Italian girl, Maria Schabara, while in one of the crowds
which daily assembled to catch a glimpse of Evelyn Thaw, little dreamed that
she would speedily become the occupant of a cell in the jail. In the throng she
espied Nicola Ferrance, a young countryman who had cast her off. She was at his
side. In a moment and pleading with him to do her justice. He pushed her from
him and laughed Maria drew a revolver and shot him. Her sole and strong hope of
escape is that her story will move the jury to comply with the new “unwritten
law.”

Emma Ripkie, not quite twenty, awaits in a cell at Council
Bluffs, Iowa, her trial for the murder of Frank K Potts, her affianced. She
discovered letters written to him by another woman, and shot him to death while
he was asleep. In his room Miss Ripkie exhibits not the least fear of the
outcome of her crime.

~ Killed Six Weeks After Marriage. ~

Mrs. Margery Clark enticed Algernon S. Atwood to Boston six
weeks after his marriage, shot him to death on his arrival and then mortally
wounded herself. She had wired Atwood that she was dying and prompted by his
former affection for Mrs. Clark he went on to his death.

Mrs. William Robinson, of Terre Haute and accused her
husband of being untrue to her He laughed at the charge and she became enraged
and shot him. She feels confident, that she will go free.

Jennie Ruth Burch, a half-breed young Indian nursegirl
killed her three-year-old baby charge because she feared punishment for burning
a barn owned by the child’s parents at White Plains, N. Y. The youth of the
murderess, and the fact of her Indian blood, while it may save her from the
electric chair will probably result in her confinement under strict restaint in
the State reformatory. The new “unwritten law” will not be a factor, it is
assumed, in deciding her fate.

~ Girl Shot by Sister. ~

More thrilling was the shooting of Ida Goff, a girl in her
early teens, by her sister Mrs Josephine Kelly, who charged alienating her
husband’s affection. At Atlanta, Ga., Mrs. E. M. Standifer shot her seventeen-year-old
sister to death for the same reason, and the jury set her free. Mrs Kelly, from
the present status of public feelings in Baltimore, where the tragedy occurred,
will probably suffer light punishment.

Several women are to be tried in Kentucky in the near future
for the killing of the women who they believed robbed the slayers of their
husband’s affections. Likely as not the new “unwritten law” which extenuates
the crimes of women who slay men will prevail to save them.

Acquittals of women recently who murdered men who wronged
them are numerous enough to prove how strong is the trend of the public mind in
its opposition to punishing slayers of the gentler sex.

Friday, January 15, 2016

EXCERPT: This woman Abigall Hill, was looked upon by all her
neighbours, for a woman inclined to much compassion, she seemed much to pity
young children, that were in distress, and according to her power to relieve
them. She was therefore supposed to be a good nurse into whose charge and care
the nursing up of young children should be committed.

She lived many years in the parish of St. Olaves in Southwark
with her husband who is yet living, ans some children she brought up carefully,
and returning them after the time was out unto the parish who paid her for
them, thinking her to be a careful and good woman; and this was the reason that
many children were brought unto her, and if any time any child forsaken by the
wicked mother was left upon the parish, she would be ready to receive and
undertake to bring it up being a nurse as wicked, and more cruel than the
mother.

Seven years thus she lived, and no notice was taken of what
became of her children if any were missing, it being believed that they died by
sickness, or having so many of them lying on her hands she had delivered the
charge of them to some poor woman to be careful of them. It was oftentimes murmured
indeed amongst her neighbours that such a child was conveyed away and much
suspicion there was amongst them because they could not tell what was become of
it, and the suddenness of the removal of the child without any noise of
sickness or discontent did add much unto their jealousy. At the last, it
pleased God that this wicked woman and her husband did fall out, where in the
heat of his passion he did upbraid her with the children she had made away.

This presently was taken notice of by the neighbours, who
affirming it was pity was wicked creature should live upon the Earth, did
acquaint the constable with it. Who, carrying her before a justice of the peace
(she having but little to say for herself), was sent to Newgate, and at the
Sessions following, which began on Wednesday, December 15th, her indictment was
read for murdering of four children. And she being not able to say anything for
herself, as to give answer what became of the children or, if they were dead,
to satisfy where they were buried, the jury found her guilty, not only for that
horrid murder, but for the charge against her that she had made a trade of it,
and that the Quarter Day she would borrow children of her poor acquaintance and
bring them to the master of the parish as if they were those she had taken into
her custody to nurse, and having received her pay for them she would return
them again unto those of whom she had borrowed them.

All the confession which she made at the bar was that indeed
once one of her children lying sick and but little hope of life, she did wring
it by the neck and killed it to put it out of its pain. For this and her other
horrid murders she was condemned to suffer death and be hanged at Cheapside,
which accordingly was performed on Wennesday, December 22nd, 1658. Being come
to the place of execution, either the stubbornness of her resolution or the
desperateness of her condition had made her almost senseless, for she made no
confession at all being advised of the shortness of her life and to meet with God
by repentance, she would return no answer to the admonitions of the divine nor
of any other that did give her any saving counsels. It is observable that being
on the ladder, as the executioner was fitting the fatal rope about her neck,
she turned suddenly unto him as if she had been in some passion and said unto
him, “What! Do you make account to choke me?” She had time given on her to make confession, but the people perceiving that she abused their expectation
the hangman as the last turned her off the ladder and she died miserably, as
she died mercilessly.

[from pages 10-14, in: A True relation of the most horrid
and barbarous murders committed by Abigall Hill of St. Olaves Southwark, on the
persons of foure infants; parish children, whom she undertooke to nurse, and
her most deceitfull borrowing of other children of her poore acquaintance, whom
on every quarter day she would bring to the over-seers of the parish, and
receive her quarters pay for them, as if they had bin the same children which
had bin committed to her charge to nurse. For which most cruell murders, being
convicted and condemned at the sessions held at the Old-Baily. Wednesday
Decemb. 15. Shee [sic] was accordingly executed on Wednesday, Decemb. 22. in
Cheapside neare unto Woodstreet. Together with a true account of the strange
and stubborn end she made, and her jeering of her executioner at the houre of
her death. And a caveat to all other women that are suspected for the like
unnaturall and most unmercifull practises. London : Printed for F.
Coles, 1658.]

***

NOTE: Wikipedia: In British and Irish tradition, the quarter days were the four dates in
each year on which servants were hired, school terms started, and rents were
due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close
to the two solstices and two equinoxes. The significance of quarter days is now
limited, although leasehold payments and rents for land and premises in England
are often still due on the old English quarter days. The quarter days have been
observed at least since the Middle Ages, and they ensured that debts and
unresolved lawsuits were not allowed to linger on. Accounts had to be settled,
a reckoning had to be made and publicly recorded on the quarter days. The
English quarter days (also observed in Wales and the Channel Islands) are Lady
Day (25 March), Midsummer Day (24 June), Michaelmas (29 September), Christmas
(25 December).

Sunday, January 3, 2016

“Youthful Borgia,” “Young Borgia” were
common terms used in the nineteenth century to describe girls who committed or
attempted to commit murder.

The vast majority of the cases
listed here have failed to attract the interest of criminologists, forensic
psychology experts and “gender” studies professors. Those “experts,” like Prof.
Michael Kimmel, purveyor of Cultural Marxism-derived theories condemning large
swaths of male sex as pathologically violent, those of them not properly
feminized (particularly “white” gentile ones), have neither knowledge nor place
in their fallacious ideology for such cases as those cited here.

Kimmel asserts: “Seldom do the news reports note that
virtually all the violence in the world today is committed by men. Imagine,
though, if the phalanxes of violence were composed entirely of women. Would
that not be the story, the only issue to be explained? Would not a gender
analysis occupy the center of every single story? The fact that these are men
seems so natural as to raise no questions, generate no analysis.” [Michael S.
Kimmel, The Gendered Society; Oxford
University Press, 2000, p. 243]

Almost all? It is not clear what he means by “almost all” or
by “violence.” What we can be sure of is that Kimmel has no familiarity with
the large body of evidence of female perpetrated violence – evidence which he
and his colleagues, because of rigid ideological bias,bend over backwards to ignore. In the
fundamentalist "social constructionist" ideology females who are individual
agents capable of violence (that is not caused by socially imposed “gender
roles”) are supposed to be nonexistent. This type of mentality is akin to
magical thinking (as practiced by children and low IQ adults).

Note: This list is still in progress.
Included are cases which are included in the collection “Serial Killer Girls.”

***

Sample case:

Click to enlarge

***

Of
particular interest, of course, are the youngest of the murderesses.
Here is a list of those 10 and younger that will be found below:

1867
– Martin Girl – Cassville, Barry County, South Carolina – age 8; shot brother (4)deliberately, mangled the body. (Jul. 4)
1867 – Elizabeth Wheeldon – Shirland Delves, near Alfreton,
Derby, England – age 17 at time of apprehension; She poisoned two children of
her at employer on different occasions so that she would have less work to do.
(2 murders on separate occasions)

1868 – Barber Girl – Corning, New York – threw young child
on floor, stamped it until almost lifeless, then roasted it to death. (Nov. 25)

1871 – Agnes Norman – London, England – age 15; murdered 4
children on different occasions and attempted to murder a fifth; also killed a
dog, two cats, six or eight birds (parrots included), and some gold fish. (serial killer)

1872 – Martha Whetstone – St. Louis, Missouri – age 16;
murdered four children, including her own sister, in a space of four months.
(serial killer)

1876 – “La Flèche Serial Killer Girl”
– La Flèche, France – age 12; smothered two children on different occasions;
removed to the hospital of La Flèche, and there felt impelled by some unnatural
force to assassinate the patients. (serial killer)

1892 – Bottoms Girl – Atoka, Kentucky – age 6; murdered sister (18-mo) after planning long in
advance; “she mashed the poor little innocent’s finger and toe-nails off with a
hatchet” 10 days before bludgeoning the child to death; after apprehension she
expressed desire to murder more babies. (serial ideation)

1892 – Ella Holdridge – Tonawanda, New York – age 14; murdered one child and
made several other attempts to murder children; she was obsessed with attending
funerals, this being her apparent motivation for murder. (serial killer)

1895 – Anna Bell ("Annabell") – Fairfield County, South Carolina – age 14
at time of apprehension; At the age of 11 she murdered a baby. At the age of 14
she murdered and dismembered another then tortured a 6-year-old boy in an
effort to force him to confess to the crime she had committed. (2 murders)
1895 – May Pierce – Grand Haven, Michigan – age 13; murdered her
mother. (Jul. 8)

1904 – Jeanne Bonnaud – Chatain,
Haute Vienne, France – age 18 at time of apprehension; murdered 4 children (including
her sister) using various methods; attempted 2 other murders. (serial killer)
1904 – Okato Take – Sasebo, Japan – age 15; planned to
murder 4 children as human sacrifices to fulfill a superstitious belief;
murdered a boy (4), and attempted to murder two 7-year old girls, all by
drowning. (Mar. 4, murder of boy)

1905 – Emilie Bienert – Interbog, Germany – age 13; poisined
nun at reformatory school three times, killing her the third time.

1911 – Clementine Barnabet (Bernebet) – Lafayette, Louisiana
–age 18; cult priestess who confessed to personally murdering 17
persons and leading many other murders; the killings were human sacrifices and
always involved decimation of entire families; she used an axe and mutilated
the corpses. (serial killer)

1912 – Ivanova Tamarin – “Kurdio,” or “Kulda,” Estonia
(?)– age 17 at time of apprehension; A
mother and her daughter and accomplices she robbed, murdered, mutilated and
cannibalized 27 persons. (serial killer)

1921 – Ineigo Kaneiko – Kumakura, Japan – age 18 at time of
apprehension; presumably 16 or 17 at time of the first murder; with husband, killed
with poison 18 people whose lives she had insured in her favor. (serial killer)
1925 – Dorothy Ellingson – San Francisco, California – age
16; shot mother to death. (Jan. 13)

Four-year-old Lizzie had told her mama before that she hated her six-month-old
baby sister and that she thought the infant “should be cut up.” One day, when
the adults were not around, Lizzie said to her six-year old brother Henry, in
her toddle lisp: “Lets till baby, will we?” [sic]. The toddler picked up her
papa’s fish-gutting knife and, laughing, clucked to little Henry: “Watch me.” The
terror-stricken boy warned his sister, “Don’t hurt her, Lizzie, or she’ll cry.”
Then Lizzie plunged the knife into her infant sister’s eye. Henry ran out to
get help. Lizzie continued to torture the child, slashing up its face. When the
horrified mother arrived the four-year old, proud of her handiwork, announced,
“Oh, mamma, dust see baby, all tut up.” [sic]

“I've killed the baby, come and get it.” This is what the
six-year old daughter had to say for herself after beating her baby sibling’s
brains out with a club. It was ten days earlier that she had first attacked the
child, “when she mashed the poor little innocent’s finger and toe-nails off
with a hatchet.” Following the crime the diminutive killer expressed no regret
for her act, but rather was quite open about her homicidal obsession,
announcing that she “always intended to kill the baby, and would have done so
long ago had she not been watched so closely that she could not.” The
witnesses, a fifteen-year-old girl, who discovered the horrible carnage
described the girl’s demeanor immediately following the murder as gleeful.

►7 YEARS OLD

• 1925 – Alsa
Thompson – Los Angeles, California, USA; age 7. She claimed to have
murdered her twin baby sisters (with ground glass) and a caretaker (with
poison), later retracting these claims. The caretaker’s remains had been
cremated and the twin’s bodies were not disinterred. Symptoms preceding the
deaths were consistent with the supposed murder method as well as with the
death certificate presumptions noted as probable cause of death. Alsa confessed
also to several poisonings and other attacks that were corroborated by
witnesses.

Long text of Alsa Thompson’s February 4, 1925 confession:

“I poisoned my baby sisters by feeding them ground glass in
some breakfast food. They died in a few days after I gave them in the glass. I
put ant paste in food that was to be given Miss Nettie Steele of 276 South
Avenue Fifty-two because I wanted to see her die. She lived about two weeks. I
put acid in the food at the Platts home because I wanted to kill them. I don’t
know I did it. I might do it again, some time.”

This is what the little child told the tree questioning men
at the psychopathic ward and then she repeated her story later to Chief Dept.
Dist.-Atty. Buron Fitts yesterday afternoon. She has told the same story since
her arrest by Policewoman Feeley from the Hollywood Police Station two days
ago.

Going to the details of the various poisonings which she
declares she planned, Alsa told Judge Gates and the doctors that she was unable
to state when she first thought of poisoning her little twin sisters, 2 years
of age.

“I was while papa was living with mama and we were all in
Canada,” Alsa said. “I had two sisters then and they were 2 years old. They
were twins. One was named Mildred and the other Muriel. They were pretty little
girls and I used to play with them.

“One morning before breakfast I took a little glass jar from
the kitchen and smashed it upon the sidewalk in the front of the house. I
picked up the little pieces and put them in some corn flakes and milk that mama
had fixed for the twins. I watched them eat it and then went out to play.”

“Why didn’t you stay in the house,” asked Judge Gates.

“Well, you see I was afraid that mother find the glass and
scold me about it.”

“My sisters died a few days after they were sick, but I
could hear them crying. They had a lot of doctors around the house. When they
died I cried, too, and everybody else cried. I felt sorry after they were
dead.”

“If you felt sorry after your little sisters were dead why
did you let them eat the glass?” This question was put by one of the doctors.

“I was sorry after they were dead, but I wasn’t sorry while
they were sick. I used to hear them crying and I wasn’t sorry then.

“After we came to Los Angeles I went to live with Mrs.
Steele. I didn’t like her daughter because the little next door kept stealing
my toys and then Mrs. Steele would scold me. I made up my mind to poison her
and so put some ant paste in her food. She got pretty sick and after a while
she died. It was after that that they moved me over to Mrs. Platt’s house on on
McCadden Place.

“Mrs. Platt has a little girl, Lorraine, and my little
Maxine went over there with me. A friend of Mrs. Platts put a radio in the
house and he told me never to touch the battery because it was poison. My
mother told me once never to play with glass and never to put it in my mouth
because if I swallowed any of it I would die. Mrs. Steele told me not to play
with the ant paste, because it was poison. That’s how I knew that if I made my
sisters eat the glass they would die and that’s why, I put the ant paste in
Mrs. Steele’s food.

“Well, I got up late one night and dipped some of the acid
out of the battery with a little toy spoon. I put the poison in the can and the
next day put some of it in their coffee. I didn’t drink any of the coffee, but
everybody else did and they all got sick. I left some of it in the can and the
next day put some of it in the coffee. I didn’t drink any of the coffee, but
everybody else did and they all got sick. I left some of it in the can and hid
it and after a while I fed some of it to Maxine with a spoon. She got pretty
sick.

“A couple of nights after the first time I took the acid out
of the battery, I got some more and put it on the lamb chops. Everybody got
sick again but me, because I didn’t take any of the stuff. After a while I
thought that I would cut my little sister’s wrists with a butcher-knife that
Mrs. Platts had sharpened, but after I got Maxine into the bathroom and had
taken the knife from the drawer, I heard Mrs. Platts coming, so I ran away.

“After I had used the acid for a while I thought of the ant
paste and took some of that form a kitchen shelf and spread it around on the
food. Everybody got sick again and called a doctor. At last, Mrs. Platts asked
me about it, and I told her and then they had me arrested.”

Alsa told her story without much prompting from the judge or
the doctors. A few questions by Judge Gates regarding each attempt to poison
some one was enough to start the child telling the details of her various
plans. She seemed to be clear in all of her details of her various plans. She
seemed to be clear in all of her details and even remembered how the victims
acted.

“I guess I liked to see them suffer.”

This was about the only explanation for her actions
yesterday.

The remarkable part of the child’s grewsome account was the
care which she told of taking to hide her operations and then naïve statement
that she told Mrs. Platts “because she asked me about it.

Pressed for a reason for her actions Alsa could give none
for the poisoning of her twin sisters except that she “liked to see them
suffer.” Miss Steele died, she stated, because she “was cross with me.” The
attempted poisoning of the Platts family was not explained. “Mrs. Platts was
always good to me,” the child said.

“A 9-year-old girl named Annie Bebies murdered her
5-year-old sister at Tarheel, in Bladen County, to-night. After beating her
victim to death with a stick, the young murderer threw the body into a creek
near the scene of the crime. The reason for committing the fiendish act was
that the murdered girl ate the food given to her. The girl said she had to work
for her living and her sister ought to do the same.”

11-year old Azey Cherry was employed by the Williams family
of Barnwell, South Carolina, to help with house work, but “poked around the
house and attended to her duties in so negligent a manner that she had to be
constantly scolded. After a scolding one day she was overheard muttering to
herself that she was not going to bother with that baby much more. A few days
after this, concentrated lye was used in scouring the floor, and when Mrs.
Williams left the room for a few minutes she told Axey that the lye was
poisonous and that she must not touch it. On her return, Mrs. Williams was horrified
to find her baby’s mouth full of concentrated lye. Axey ran out of the house
saying as she left:

Mary Bell committed
two strangling murders, seriously injured another chiold by pushing him off an
elevation and was interrupted multiple times in the midst of strangling other
children.

“I like hurting
people.”

“Brian Howe had no
mother, so he won’t be missed.”

“If I was a judge
and I had an eleven-year-old who’d done this, I’d give her eighteen months.
Murder isn’t that bad, we all die sometime anyway.”

Norma, Mary's 13-year-old best friend, who took part in the
second murder, stated that Mary told her: “I squeezed his neck and pushed up
his lungs that’s how you kill them. Keep your nose dry and don’t tell anybody.”

“Oh, I know he’s dead, I wanted to see him in his coffin,”
Mary said to the mother of the child she murdered.

EXCERPT FROM CONFESSION: “I left little Margarete on the
stairs, and there I found her again. From the yard I saw that the second-floor
window was half open. I went with her up the stairs to the second floor to take
away the ear-rings, and then to throw her out of the window. I wanted to kill
her, because I was afraid that she would betray me. She could not talk very
well, but she could point to me; and if it came out, my mother would have
beaten me. I went with her to the window, opened it wide, and set her on the
ledge. Then I heard some one coming down. I quickly put the child on the ground
and shut the window. The man went by without noticing us. Then I opened the
window and put the child on the ledge, with her feet hanging out, and her face
turned away from me. I did that because I did not want to look in her face, and
because I could push her easier. I pulled the ear-rings out. Grete began to cry
because I hurt her. When I threatened to throw her out of the window she became
quiet. I took the ear-rings and put them in my pocket. Then I gave the child a
shove, and heard her strike the lamp and then the pavement. Then I quickly ran
downstairs to go on the errand my mother had sent me. I knew that I should kill
the child. I did not reflect that little Grete’s parents would be sorry. It did
not hurt me; I was not sorry; I was not sorry all the time I was in prison; I
am not sorry now.”

The girl, Patricia Corcoran, told police she also intended to kill her uncle but added:
“When I saw him I just couldn’t do it.”
In confessing the murder of her aunt, Mrs. Lavern Bruce, 44, Patricia said:
“I murdered her. I must be crazy.”

Morgan Geyser (12): “People that trust you are very
gullible.” “It was weird that I didn’t feel remorse.”

Anissa Weir (12): “The bad part of me wanted her to die; the
good part of me wanted her to live.”

►13 YEARS OLD

• 1881 – Margaret
Messenger – Cumberland, England – age 13 at time of first murder, 14 when
arrested.

14-year-old Margaret Messenger laid
an infant face downward in a boggy place, placed a stone upon its head, and so
suffocated it.She even confessed later
on that she had herself killed the baby alone and unaided. At the time of
committing the crime she was only 13, and had but just attained her 14th year
when brought to trial. She also confessed that she had murdered another child
of the same family – the little boy who was drowned in the well a short time
before – having purposely thrown him in, The idea occurred to her, to quote her
own words, as she was chopping sticks in the yard and she took him to the well
and drowned him. [edited from linked source]

“The idea occurred to her,” to quote
her own words, “as she was chopping sticks in the yard and she took him to the
well and drowned him.”

Nellie was adopted by the Kinsleys of Corning, New York at
the age of two. When she was thirteen the child cooked up a scheme to get rich
quick. But she had a big mouth and got caught.

“Do you know how to get money and houses and everything you
want?” she asked her playmates while her parents were ill. “When your father
and mother are dead all they own will belong to you. I found that out a little
while ago, and I took some of the rat poison papa got to kill the rats with and
put it in the supper I cooked. I did not eat the supper, but papa and mamma did
and then they got sick, if they die I will have money.”

Both victims survived the murder attempt, but the
step-mother was injured by the poisoning so badly that she was thought to have
been probably crippled for life.

Josephine Carr was in the habit of stealing baby carriages.
One day she ran off with one containing a baby. Not sure what to do about it
she deciding that murdering the infant would solve everything. She got caught.
She told one story about throwing the child off a bridge.

“Then I got frightened,” she said. “I was afraid papa would
be mad, so I threw it over the embankment.”

But
the autopsy showed that it was probable than Nellie took the child and
pushed its face into the mud drowning it in shallow water.

“I waited my chance. Thursday afternoon Mrs Kramer went out
into the yard to fix some clothes. A moment before she had been in the kitchen,
where the nurse and I were, and had told us she was going to the market with
some eggs. I thought she had gone. I went upstairs. The child. Solomon – oh,
yes; I loved him – was asleep. I waked him up. I took down the bottle of lysol.
I said to the little fellow. “Here! Take some cough medicine.’ Then I poured it
in his mouth. When he screamed I became frightened am! knew I had done wrong. I
ran out of the room. But as I ran out I met Mrs. Kramer who had heard the child
cry. She ran in and returned a moment later declaring the child had been
poisoned. It was my idea that it would appear that the boy got the poison by
mistake Then the nurse would have been blamed. When I saw that this might not
work I poured some of the lysol in the teapot. You know they have a habit in
thjat house of making tea and letting it stand and then adding hot water to the
strong tea.”

After murdering baby Frances, only a few months old,
Catherine Hummell, the nurse girl charged wity caring for the infant, ran out
of the house to where her victims’ parents were working and announced that
“Francis has the knife in his hand, he cut himself and will die.”

What was sone to the baby: “Dr. Rhoads made a post mortem
examination of the body and found the throat cut from ear to ear. The wind pipe
was divided completely, the right carotid artery and jugular veins were also
cut, and death must have occurred almost immediately from hemorrhage. The knife
used was a common butcher knife with a thick blade and extremely dull, so that
the girl must have used considerable force in accomplishing the monstrous
crime.”

Ella Holdrige observed, concerning a poackage
of rat poison she was considering put to use that: “If it killed rats and mice
it would kill children.” Ella seems to have succeeded in only one of the
several murders she attempted. Her motive was a bit unusual. For, you see,
little Ella got her kicks from the pomp and drama of funerals. She was, one
might say, addicted to them.

“The frightful death of Louisa Stormer, and the severe
illness of five or six other children of Tonawanda, has brought to light the
fact that 14-year-old Ella Holdridge is a murderess. Her frightful crime is the
result of a morbid desire to see death scenes enacted. She was attended every
funeral that has occurred in the neighborhood for several years past. Funerals
have been infrequent hereabouts lately. Ella, it seems, took upon herself the
duty of supplying subjects. She administered rat poison to several pupils of
Father Baker’s institution at Limestone Hill. They suffered frightfully while
she stood by and coolly awaited the coming of death. The helpless little ones
ran shrieking from her presence. Medical aid was summoned and her lives were
saved.”

Of Louisa Stormer, the girl she did succeed in murdering
with rat poison, Ella Holdridge said, “made the prettiest corpse ever put under
New York soil.” “Yes, she’s dead. Poor
Louisa! But she looked awful pretty, and her funeral was awful nice.”

She confessed to murdering 17 babies “because
they bothered her, and she disliked the trouble of attending to them.”

A newspaper report: “A terrible
confession has been made by a 14-year-old nursegirl at Novgorod, in Russia, one revealing quite a phenomenal and cold-blooded
development of a passion to murder on the part of a mere child. The girl was arrested on suspicion
of having caused the death of a baby she was nursing, and confessed to the
police that she had killed seventeen children, “because they bothered her, and
she disliked the trouble of attending to them.” The murders were carried out
with great cunning, the girl not exciting the least suspicion, until the death occurred
for which she was arrested, although her path from house to house was marked by
the hand of death, and infant after infant placed in her charged sickened and
died.”

Then I carried out my plan. I poured some strychnine from
the bottle upon the cotton. The bottle I threw on the ground, covering it with
some grass and dead leaves. With the cotton in my hand I started for the house.
On the way there Wilbur ran out to meet me. He pointed to the big red peach in
my hand, and walked with me to the house, trying with his little hand to pry
the peach out of my strong one. We went into the house I found Mrs. Winship
sitting at a table, reading. She looked at me coldly and dropped her eyes upon
her book without a word.

“Wilbur wants some of the peach. May I give him some of it?”
I asked

“Yes,” she said, “if it is ripe.”

My chance had come. Wilbur followed me to the table, and I
went and sat down directly opposite his mother peeled the peach in plain sight
of Mrs Winship. She didn’t notice us. I stopped for a minute after I had peeled
the peach and looked at her. I quickly lifted up the tablecloth. The cotton was
damp and dark with the iodine. I was afraid Mrs. Winship should smell it, but
she bent her head over her book. Holding the tablecloth up a little, so that
Mrs Winship could not see if she turned round suddenly, I rubbed the iodine and
strychnine sprinkled cotton on the peach. I handed Wilbur a piece of it and ate
the rest myself.

I watched him eat every morsel of it. Then I put him into
his little rocking chair and left the room. Going to the kitchen stove I threw
the cotton into it and watched it out. I hurried out on the porch and threw the
peach pit into the high grass in the yard.

Almost as soon as I went back the baby was then sick. He
twisted his poor little body and cried as though he was in terrible pain. I
almost cried, too, but at that Winship telephoned for the doctor and put us
both to bed. I lay there and waited and waited. I wanted to hear that the baby
had gone. In a little while I heard his screams and I twisted the bedclothes
and cried because he was in agony. The screams stopped, and the doctor, coming
to my door, said. “Wilber is dead.”

Fifteen-year-old Henrietta Weibel
murdered one baby by burning it to death and attempted to repeat the scenario
with another infant victim. She stated she had a mania for setting fires and
burning babies.

An interview with a newspaper reporter resulted in the
following revelations:

“Henrietta,” queried the writer, “is it true that you tried
to burn a baby at West Farms?”

“Yes, sir,” was the prompt and apparently ingenious reply.

“What could have prompted you to attempt such a wicked
deed?”

“I don’t know, sir; something told me to do it.”

“Would you not have been sorry had you succeeded in killing
the child?”

“No, sir, I don’t know that I would.”

“Then you don’t seem to like babies?”

“No, sir.”

“Was that the first time you ever tried to burn a child?”

“No, sir. When I was living with Mrs. Kinney, at Tarrytown,
I had a mind to set fire to the baby, but I didn’t do it.”

A news report: “Lillian B. Thorman, a thirteen-year-old
girl, today fatally burned the three-year-old child of Robert Dorsey of this
city.

“The girl, who was employed to do light work around the
house literally fried the child was writhing and screaming in its agony an aunt
entered the room and rescued it, but the child had been roasted from head to
foot and cannot live.

“The servant girl in jail tonight confessed that she had
fatally burned three other children in a similar manner, giving their parents
the impression that they had fallen on the stove accidentally while climbing to
reach something.

“With a mania for burning children when they are bad,
because, as she says, “I am a devil and will burn them,” Lillian Thornman, a
13-year-old colored girl, knocked upon a red hot stove a two-year-old daughter
of Robert Dorsey, also colored, and for several seconds calmly watched her
struggle to get off the stove and away from the boiler of hot water, which was
poured over her body as she alighted on the stove. Another girl then ran in
from the yard and saved the child from further injury. This was the Thornman
girl’s third victim. A year ago she set Esther Louise Harris, aged three years,
on a red hot stove and hold her fast until she made the statement that she was
a devil.”

With a mania for burning children when they are bad,
because, as she says, “I am a devil and will burn them.” “I did it because I
have the devil in me.”

‘I just f***ing killed someone. I strangled them and slit
their throat and stabbed them now they’re dead. I don’t know how to feel atm
[at the moment]. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the "ohmygawd I
can’t do this" feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky
though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol.’

“Mary Metzdorf confessed this morning to having poisoned
Miss Louise Broadwaters, her little brother James, and her mother, Catharine.
She said she put arsenic in the coffee ‘just for fun.’ Though not quite 17
years old, she bears herself like a hardened criminal. Miss Broadwaters died
almost immediately after drinking the coffee, and James, her 6-year-old
brother, expired last night. Mrs. Broadwaters, the third victim, is still in a
critical condition. It is now probable that she will also died.”

Elizabeth Wheeldonpoisoned two children of her at employer on different occasions so that
she would have less work to do.

The Coroner then reviewed the evidence at some length,
remarking that there was no doubt the servant girl knew where the poison was
kept, and they would have to consider her conduct throughout both illnesses,
and also the fact that when she was asked if she was not sorry the children
were dead, she said “No; I shall have less work to do.”

“I strangled the baby because I felt her mother wasn’t
supporting me in managing her other child, and because I felt they were working
me too hard — At this point the girl interrupted her explanation to laugh. “I
have to laugh when the impulse comes over me,” she said. “When things like this
happen I have to laugh.”

Clementine was an 18-year-old priestess in a voodoo-derived
human sacrifice cult. She lad her group on a months long campaign of
axe-murders. With her own hands she murdered seventeen persons, but she oversaw
many more gruesome murders in which the victims were ritually dismembered. Her
cult targeted families in their homes, never individuals.

In court she boasted: “I killed them all, men, women and
babies, and I hugged the babies to my breast. But I am not guilty of murder.”

“We weren’t afraid of being arrested because I carried a ‘voodoo,’ which
protected us from all punishment.”